Eye for an eye: Iran sentences woman to blinding as punishment

An Iranian woman convicted of blinding a man in an acid attack was sentenced to blinding, local media reported on Tuesday.

In 2014, a 30-year-old woman in the city of Mashhad threw acid in the face of a 33-year-old man she had been involved with, according to the state-run Rokna news agency.

The man was blinded in both eyes following the attack.

The woman, who is a martial arts instructor, was seeking revenge, according to Rokna.

During interrogations, the woman said that she had ended her marriage and had given custody of her child to her ex-husband in order to be with the man who would become the victim of the acid attack.

The two entered into a temporary marriage and made plans to get married permanently, but the man ended up marrying someone else a few months later, according to the woman.

Temporary marriage, or “sigheh,” is a practice that unites man and woman as husband and wife for a limited time. Temporary marriage – which can last for a few hours, days, months or years – is allowed in Shia Islam but is strictly banned in Sunni Islam.

“I had ruined my life because of a street love … I devised a plan for revenge and lured him into a building in Mashhad and threw acid at him there,” Rokna reported the woman as saying during interrogations.

Blinding is a form of punishment under Iranian law.

The punishment was carried out for the first time in the country in 2015 when an Iranian man convicted of blinding another man in an acid attack was blinded in one eye.

The Islamic Republic views blinding as an effective deterrent against acid attacks, but rights groups, including Amnesty International, condemn it as barbaric.

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